Dirty Money

Overview

Objectives/Goals To test for Escherichia Coli on quarters from around the United States, and some foreign countries. Methods/Materials Using the 3M petrifilm, pipette (10ml and 1ml), pipetter, incubator, gloves, sterile bag, quarter, vortex, test tube, stomacher 400 circulator, 3M presser, coin count sheet, buffered peptone water solution, and a sharpie, the testing can be done. 1. Collect the quarters in a sterile bag 2. Label all of the petrifilm with the quarter code 3. Using the 10ml pipette and pipetter, take 10ml of the solution and place in each sterile bag 4. Take the sterile bags and place in the stomacher for 30 seconds at 300 beats per minute 5. Place 1ml of solution from sterile bag into the test tube, and another 1ml, from the same bag, onto petrifilm 6. Spread the solution around the petrifilm with a 3M presser 7. Put solution in the test tube onto the vortex for five seconds 8. Plate onto the petrifilm using the pipette and pipetter 9. Place in the incubator for 48 hours at 37 Celsius 10. Read the samples and record results Results The results concluded that 0% of the quarters tested had traces of E. Coli. There was no trace of the bacterium, E. Coli on the quarters tested, which means that Americans do have relatively clean hands when exchanging quarters. There were a few exceptions where unidentifiable bacteria, or coliforms, were found on the petrifilm. Citizens can be reassured that the money is safe to handle. Americans do a great job on washing their hands, which is important when handling money. Conclusions/Discussion The results proved the experimenter#s hypothesis wrong, due to the fact that there was no E. Coli on the quarters. However, some of the petrifilm contained coliforms, showing that there were some unidentified bacteria on the coins. This shows that people transfer bacteria onto quarters, and then go back into circulation to infect more people.

Competition history

• CSEF 2014 Microbiology (General) · Entry J1519

Resources

• CSEF project summary ↗

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